


The Old Guard AU with dæmons

by Redchange15



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon-Typical Violence, Daemons, Established Relationship, Gen, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, Same-Sex Daemons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:01:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25957174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redchange15/pseuds/Redchange15
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin- it's the Old Guard but reimagined with Dæmon's, with a focus on Joe and Nicky.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 32
Kudos: 449





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm currently writing something else but this plot bunny came and ate my brain and had to be written. 
> 
> If you're not familiar with what a dæmon is- it's from the book series His Dark Materials. Basically your spirit lives outside you in animal form and can talk to you. More details can be found here- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A6mon_(His_Dark_Materials)
> 
> Enjoy and let me know if you like it.

Scylas pads alongside Andy as they saunter through the back alleys of Marrakesh on their way to the hotel. As always, Andy can sense people staring at Scylas as he moves alongside her. It’s not common for people to have a lynx as a dæmon, or at least not common today. 

Scylas and Andy can almost sense Étilie before she flys in front of them and moments later Andy hears the telltale sign of a motorbike coming up behind her as Booker from around the corner.

They exchange pleasantries and she hands over her gift to Booker as they walk to the hotel. Étilie chooses to use Scylas as a perch for the rest of the trip as she talks to him, because why fly when there’s a perfectly serviceable mule that can take her. It’s an argument over 200 years old, but Scylas still tries and fails, to buck the magpie off. Andy smiles, happy to be around family again, before getting distracted as Booker tells her about the possible job. 

-

In the hotel, she makes sure that Scylas stays close to her, and he plays the role of dutiful dæmon by weaving annoyingly through her legs because after six thousand years he _knows_ how that pisses her off. 

They take their keys and go to the hotel room where Joe and Nicky are waiting. She smiles and hugs them both, as Zaida and Athusien rush out as a pair to welcome Scylas. Athusien raises on his back legs to nuzzle close to Scylas, and Scylas lowers his head- happy to see his favourite Pine Marten dæmon. Zaida brushes up alongside and nips good-naturedly at Étilie because she knows she hates it. Before nudging up against Scylas, her red Arabian fox fur contrasted with the pale yellow of Scylas’s.

“Get in you lot!” Andy says sitting on the couch, “I swear, you four make it look like you haven’t seen each other in centuries, it’s barely been a year.” 

The dæmons make their way inside and Booker closes the door as they settle around the table. Zaida stands alongside Nicky who runs his hands casually through her fur, Scylas regally jumps up and settles beside Andy, while Athusien claws his way up to Joe's body before settling over his shoulders and Joe scratches absently underneath his neck. 

Étilie, purely because she’s the world's most contrary magpie, decides that the centre of the coffee table is where she wants to be.  
“For you,” Nicky says, handing a small wrapped gift to Andy. She smiles, knowing exactly what this is. The others all lay their bets down and Andy breaks into half and offers some to Scylas who sniffs at it.

“No cheating!’ Athusien quips from Joe's shoulder. Andy takes a bite and both Scylas and her rattle of all the ingredients. Successfully.

Nicky swears, Étilie and Booker crow over the winnings and Joe just laughs. “Admit it boss, you missed us,” he states, as Athusien jumps down to console himself beside Zadia. Andy looks around at her family and their dæmon’s and admits that she has.

Booker tells them about the job. Nicky, as always, is predictably supportive by virtue of his unflinching need to do good, and wherever Nicky goes so does Joe. Andy trusts them, trusts their judgement.

She glances as Scylas who nods. “I’ll hear him out”, she says. 

-

They meet Copley and decide to take the job.

\- 

They arrive at the overwatch point for the compound and fall into well-worn patterns. Nicky and Joe set up the sniper's post. Étilie flies up and over the compound to get a better view of the different guard positions and Zaida and Athusien move forward to get a better understanding of the ground situation. Athusian can slip through the gaps in the fence and make sure he’s not seen.

Andy thinks that one of the many perks of coming back from the dead is that their dæmons are no longer tethered to them by distance. Very useful for reconnaissance. 

They return safely and tell everyone what they’ve seen. Joe strokes Athusien to soothe him, as he recounts the shoes of the children by the door. Étilie tells them the guards rotate every two hours, so the team waits and Nicky takes his shot at the guard tower as the new guards take position and look to settle in. 

The infiltration goes smoothly, dæmons follow after them as they dispatch the child kidnappers and they quietly make it to the bunker where the girls are being kept. Booker blows the doors and they force their way down the stairs, Étilie and Athusien staying up top as spotters.

It promptly all goes to shit. Andy barely gets out a ‘mother-fucker’ before she feels the bullets tear through her. They fall to the floor and the last thing she sees as she dies is someone putting a bullet through Scylas’s skull. 

It’s not the first time, but it still burns and hurts when they do that. 

As she comes around, it’s to the soldiers standing above her, crowding around the corpses of Scylas and Zaida who haven’t disappeared like good little dæmons. She takes a breath as she sees that one of the soldiers is stupid enough to put his hand on Zaida’s fur. Nicky _isn’t_ going to like that. Booker twitches next to her, and she hears Joe take a pained breath. 

They stand and move as one. 

Nicky immediately goes after the soldier who touched Zaida with brutality and focus that means the man is dead in moments. He stands protectively over Zaida as she gets up before she launches herself at a dog dæmon that gets too close. 

Étilie and Athusien come down the stairs as the bullets fly for a second time, helpfully getting in the faces or tripping up the soldiers that they’re fighting. Andy pulls out her axe and wields it with brutal efficiency, while Nicky and Joe work as pair to finish off the rest of the soldiers. 

The other side never stood a chance. 

Once it’s over Nicky immediately kneels down beside Zaida and runs his fingers through her fur, as if it’ll remove the feeling of the soldier touching her. She bumps his head against his, telling him she’s alright. Joe grasps Nicky’s shoulder to ground him, wiping his scimitar against the body of one of the soldiers before sheathing it and briefly strokes her head. Athusian all but launches himself at her, clambering on top and laying on her back, his head on top of hers. 

Between the four of them as they stand over the corpses the full implications of what’s just happened become clear to them.

They’ve been betrayed.

Now they need to get revenge.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took longer than expected, but finally got around to writing the next chapter. 
> 
> As always keen to hear peoples thoughts.

Kaelton settles into his final form when Nile is nine, just ten months after her father dies. It’s a well-known fact that trauma in a child can settle dæmons final form, can force a child to grow up before their time. 

Kaelton settles as staffy dog, and Niles mother tries hard not to cry when Nile comes down for breakfast and Kaelton pads down behind her. 

Nile’s dads dæmon was a terrier. 

At 21 Nile has held enough dead-end jobs to know that she doesn’t want to keep doing them. She has a truly horrible fight with her mum and walks into the army recruitment office the next day with Kaelton following her loyally behind.

The staff sergeant kindly explains the process of signing up, the benefits of the GI bill and the roles she can do. He, and his German shepherd dæmon, treat it as a foregone conclusion that she’ll sign up.

There’s a reason people joke about dog soldiers. Everyone knows that dog daemons are loyal, hard-working and need a pack, need a family. Over half her cohort in basic training have a type of dog as a dæmon. 

Nile and Kaelton enjoy basic training and settle into the routine of the army. Her mum barely holds back tears when Nile tells her she’s being deployed, and her brother says nothing and Junal’s talons sink into his shoulders, his dæmon desperate to try and console him. None of them looks at the picture of her dad on the mantelpiece. 

She deploys in April for 6 months, she bonds with her team in between patrols and Kaelton gives his best wild dog grin. It’s hard work, but it feels good to be part of a team. Nile dies less than two months before she’s supposed to go back. Kaelton whines, lying down beside her and panting out his final breaths in synch to hers. As she dies, her fingers grip his fur and she chokes on blood trying to tell him she’s sorry.

-

When Nile wakes up in the hospital, she bites down her terror and immediately reaches out for Kaelton. He’s just beside her on the bed and she feels his short grey fur and wet nose under her fingers. Kaelton wines and crawls that little bit further till he’s pressed up against her hip.

“How are we alive?” he asks quietly, as Niles strokes his fur. She has no idea what’s going on, and the doctors claim it's a miracle. They tell her they want to run more tests, and Nile’s a good soldier who listens to orders so she agrees. It’s only as she goes to the toilet and doesn’t feel the pull of Kaelton that she knows somethings wrong. She almost struck dumb in horror when she realises that he doesn’t need to be near her. 

She’s only ever heard of witches not needing to be near their dæmon. Witches or the cursed people. She fights the urge to panic and pulls Kaelton closer to her as they both desperately try to reassure each other.

Then she meets Andromache and Scylas and everything promptly goes batshit.

-  
Her leg and Kaelton’s bite marks heal as they fly away in a drug-smuggling plane out of Afghanistan.

So... they’re immortal now.

That’s a thing. 

-

Twenty-four hours later and she meets the new army of eight that she’s been drafted into and tries to pretend that it is all normal while having a minor freak out internally. Kaelton stays close to her, lying under her chair and tail conspicuously absent in its normal wagging. Part of Nile very much wants to hold Kaelton close and hug him as she did in the first few months after her father passed. It’s always made her feel better.

She doesn’t. Instead, she looks around the dinner table, as an Italian who goes by Nicky serves her a simple dinner. They’re all silent, waiting for her to ask her many questions. The man who calls himself Joe pours them all a drink and Booker’s wine is barely in the glass before he’s already drinking it. Andy and Scylas have wandered into the back of church and Nile can hear the low hum of a conversation happening between them. 

The dæmons are much more friendly than their human counterparts and seem fascinated by Kaeltron. Nile tries to work out which dæmon belongs to which human, but they all seem to interact independently of each other. She is pretty sure that Étilie belongs to the Frenchman, but she can’t work out whose demon is the small fox or the pine marten. The two little dæmon seem to move at ease between Nicky and Joe. One moment they are both trying to get Kaelton involved in a conversation before Athusien moves and settles in Joe's lap. While Zaida walks behind Nicky as he cooks, almost getting trampled underfoot until Nicky good-naturedly tells her to move, and she wanders over to Joe who absentmindedly strokes the top of her head while Athusien lies curled up in his lap.

They settle down to eat and Athusien stays in Joe's lap and Zaida crawls under the table to lie beneath Nicky’s chair. 

She’s never seen anything like it. 

Booker catches her staring as the dishes are cleared. “It was the same for me,” he says quietly into his glass, “the two of them basically switch it up whenever they need to, it used to confuse me too.”

“So who belongs to who?” Nile asks quietly as Joe helps Nicky clear the plates.

“Athusien is Nicolo’s, and Zaida is Joes. But honestly, it could be either after all this time,” he says while shrugging, clearly used to it. Nile has never known any other people to be so completely at ease with someone else touching their demon. It’s almost unheard of, even in the most romantic of couples. She struggles to comprehend the trust they must have with each other, to let the other one touch a literal part of their soul so easily. She’s only ever touched her brother or mother's demon, and only then when they were grieving after her dad died. She wonders how long they’ve been doing it to appear not to be affected when they do.

Nicky kindly shows her to her bed and Zaida follows him, bumping up against his leg and Nicky absentmindedly pats her as he shows Nile where to put her few belongings. Nile tries very hard not to stare, Kaelton is even less subtle. 

She settles into sleep and Kaelton takes his normal place at the bottom of her bed. Joe and Nicky take the bed by the corner as Athusien and Zaida curl up together like their humans, Zaida curls around Athusien. 

Nile thinks she’ll struggle to fall asleep surrounded by people she doesn’t know, but the exhaustion and time difference catch up quickly and sleep claims her.

\--

She wakes up in the middle of the night to a nightmare, bolting upright and waking everyone else up, Kaeltron whimpers as she talks about her nightmare, and Nicky tells her the story of Quynh. Nile can still taste the sea salt in her mouth and shudders in horror at their story. The other demons bury Kaelton in a puppy-esque pile to console him.

The worst part of Nicky’s story; they don’t know what happened to Qunyh’s demon. Nile knows the demon isn’t in the iron coffin with her and can feel the insanity of a woman without part of her soul. Nicky tells her that none of them know what happened to the red-shanked Douc that sat on Scylas’s back for centuries. All they know is what the sailors told them, that the small monkey turned to golden dust at sea. Horror curls low in her stomach at the idea of being alive in a world where Kaelton isn’t there.

Nicky looks so defeated as he tells the story, and Zaida pulls herself away until she’s all but crawled in his lap, his fingers run over her fur and it clearly calms him. Athusien doesn’t move and stretches himself further over Kaelton, clearly trying to provide more comfort regardless of his small size. Only Scylas stays back, caught up in his own memories. 

It all becomes too much for Nile, as the true curse of immortality becomes clear. She needs air, and Kaelon gives a low whine. They need to get out. She stands and walks out with Kaelton close on her heels. Andy follows a moment later and tries to console her, and Nile struggles to believe a word of it.

It all promptly goes to shit when the masked men with guns attack their little church and take Nicky, Joe and their dæmons.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I think there's only one chapter left in me. But it'll be the Merrick fall out and will probs be longer then the rest of them

Then

-

Nicolo di Genova is born into original sin, steeped in it. For sins that are not his own, his dæmon is born male. 

Everyone knows it goes against the natural order of things, but his parents choose to love him regardless. 

His father teaches him how to read, while his mother teaches him the more important skills of how to hide what he is. Nicolo’s dæmon is called Athusien and he learns from the cruel taunts of the other boys in the town that he’s a freak. Their parents whisper that Nicolo and Athusien are unnatural. 

Boy’s are supposed to have girl dæmon’s, not boy ones. 

Nicolo and Athusien learn to keep mostly to themselves and Athusien rarely speaks unless it’s just them. He’s even quiet amongst the rest of the family, and as a child he takes shapes that give nothing away and allow them to blend in. When Nicolo is thirteen Athusien takes his final form as a Pine Marten, fur grey on his little form with a white patch under his neck that Nicolo likes to scratch when he’s frustrated or nervous. It's a nervous tick that neither of them ever gets rid of. 

Although he is the first son, his father tells him at a young age that he will be passed over and that his younger brothers will inherit. Nicolo doesn’t mind because he knows that it’s not natural for anomalies like him and Athusien to inherit. Instead his father, who has only ever truly wanted the best for his strange son, organises for him to join the monastery where he can learn and become a priest. As his father takes him to the monastery one week after Athusien is settled, he tells him that many of the other priests also have male dæmons.

It is the last time he sees his family.

Nicolo and Athusien find what comfort they can in their new home. Nicolo renounces his name as expected and takes the name of the city he loves. His father is right, many (but not all) of the other boys do have male dæmon’s and society is kind and understanding to their differences. He finds himself, if not enjoying the strict order of the place, finding peace in the structure and being around people that are like him. 

Athusien hates it. 

Athusien hates the silence, the prayers, the early mornings and the fact that it seems like a cage. He angrily whispers all this to Nicolo in the evenings as they’re tucked up in the dormitories alongside the other boys. 

All Athusien wants to do is leave.

At 18, Nicky is finally convinced that a life of books and scripture is not for him and Athusien. Instead, they tell the Abbot that they want to be missionaries and spread the word of God. The Abbot, who is a kind man with a barn owl for a demon, writes to a local lord who offers to take Nicolo on as a soldier who might one day become a crusader. 

He spends just over a decade learning to fight in local squabbles. He learns the art of the sword and is taught to ride (if badly) and finds himself more suited to the life of a warrior monk than that of a parish priest. 

Athusien likes to gloat about it in the evenings. 

When the call comes for Genoa to send supplies for the knights in the Holy War, Nicky goes to the Abbot and gets permission to spread the word of Christ at the end of a sword. It’s granted without question.

He and Athusien leave on the boats with the belief that they are doing God’s work. It takes less than a month at sea for them to see the cracks. By the time they land, he sees what the crusaders have been doing and Authusien questions if they’re doing the right thing.

The priests tell anyone that will listen; that they are doing god's work and that the heretics that control Jerusalem are killing god-fearing Christians and their dæmons. They preach that the soldiers and dæmons they fight do not feel pain, that they do not share the holy bond that good Christians do with their dæmons. 

Nicky has a strong suspicion that they’re making it all up. 

Days later he is killed for the first time. The last thing he sees is Athusien dangling unnaturally by the neck in the mouth of a red Arabian fox. He feels a pain inside him that he’s never felt before and stabs wildly upwards to the stomach of the man who killed him. 

He dies desperately trying to reach for Athusien, as his killer bleeds out beside him and whispers something to his dying dæmon.

-

Nicky comes back from the dead for the first time in the evening, battlefield eerily quiet where previously it had filled with the noise of men fighting.

He rolls himself over and vomits out blood clots that have settled into this stomach. As he heaves out the content of his stomach, his hands reach to his under the armour where the scimitar had cut through the weak points in his armour. 

There is no cut and the skin is unbroken. 

Confusion takes him, but he picks up Athusien and tucks him into the safe space under his chest plate. Athusien whimpers and pulls himself closer to Nicky and the sound of his pain reaches into Nicky's core. He can feel their bond rebuilding itself slowly and it hurts at a level he could barely have conceived of only yesterday. 

He knows he died because he felt his bond with Athusien break. As he died he felt the terrifying feeling of being truly alone for the first time in his life.

He has no idea what’s going on, but he never wants to feel that again. 

-

He goes back the next day to fight because if he has been given a gift by God, then he must use it. He almost stops dead when he sees the man and the little dæmon fox beside the man. They haven’t noticed him, so he uses the element of surprise. 

He rushes forward and sees the other man's eyes widen as he recognises Nicky. Nicky swings his sword low and partially disembowels the other man. As he dies the red fox crawls over to her fallen human and lets out a pitiful whine as they die. 

Nicky stands over their bodies, waiting for the little red fox to dissolve, but before he can wait any longer another nameless heathen attacks him and in the ensuing fight he loses sight of the man and the fox that killed him. 

He sees him the next day, and over the months they brutally kill each other. Neither has any idea why they can’t die. Nicky doesn’t have a name of his immortal warrior but can recognise his little fox dæmon anywhere. 

-

The idea of touching another’s dæmon is taboo in all cultures, but when the person you're fighting can’t die… _well anything’s game_. 

To Nicky’s eternal shame, he’s the one that touches the other dæmon first.

They are well into their fifth month of fighting and Nicky's nameless and immortal enemy swung low while the Arabian Red Fox dæmon lunged at Athusian, biting towards his unprotected back- _again_. Without thinking, Nicky accepted the blow to his chest from the heathen but used the last of his energy to grab the fox by the neck and fling her backwards and protect Athusien. 

The enemy had howled (rightfully) at having his dæmon touched. And as Nicky died (again), he felt bad for touching the dæmon so roughly but also thought that the fur was much softer than he expected it to be.  
\--

Nicky wants for a truce days later. He’s had enough of fighting, dying and getting up to do it all over again. He sees his immortal enemy coming for him, and glances down at Athusien who mutters; “here we go again”. Nicky decides he's had enough. 

He gestures for Athusien, who runs up his arm and hides in the armour with practised ease. Then Nicky turns and walks away.

He’d _done_. 

The bastard fires an arrow into his retreating back and kills him anyway. 

He wakes up in the evening with the man towering above him with the sharp pointy end of the sword scraping at Nicky's throat and with his red fox growling menacingly beside him. Athusien hasn’t moved from his place under Nicky’s armour but Nicky knows instinctively he’s alive. 

“That was for touching Zaida,” he says coldly in clipped Greek, anger clear on his face. 

“Fair,” Nicky says- he did touch the other man's dæmon. Athusien crawls out from under the armour, “we’re sorry” his little dæmon says quietly to the red fox. 

She sits on her back legs, as his enemy sheaths his sword and kneels to stroke her head. If Nicky hadn’t been taught that the Saracens dæmon don’t feel pain he’d swear she looked hurt. “If you do it again, we’ll kill you till you really stay dead,” she says. 

Nicky nods because that's a good bargain and he would do the same if someone touched Athusien. The Saracen leans down and picks the arrow up that Nicky’s body has just expelled. He inspects it and puts it back at the quiver on his side.

“I’m Athusien, this is Nicolo,” his little dæmon says to the fox. 

“Zaida. My human is called Yusef,” she replies.

“Do you know why we don’t die?” Athusien asks her. 

She shook her head, “No, we thought you might know. Yusef won’t say it, but we don’t want to fight anymore.”

Neither human says anything to each other, but both have their hands within reaching distance of their swords. That evening, the four of them walk off the battlefield away in the opposite direction of where their armies are.

-

Nicky doesn’t touch Zaida again for years. Even as the temporary truce becomes a friendship and then evolves to a feeling that neither Nicolo nor Athusien can describe. Even as he looks down at Zaida and his heart swells with affection; he still remembers the pained look of surprise as he grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and threw her across the battlefield. 

He kills anyone that touches her. It still doesn’t make him feel any less guilty

Zaida and Athusien are more open in their affections with each other and Athusien often rides on the back of Zaida. At night the two of them curl up around each other to keep each other warm

After almost a decade of being beside one another, the four of them get caught in a fight. One of their enemies goes to grab Zaida, and Nicky doesn’t even think as he lunges towards him and gets stabbed for it. He comes around with Zaida standing over him and nervously licking the blood from his face.

“You died for minutes,” she says worriedly. 

“Yusuf?!” Nicky asks. It's the first thought he has.

“Still fighting…” she says, “Athusien is with him.”

They win the fight and Nicky desperately tries not to focus too much on coming back with Ziada beside him. He tells himself that she did it because she needed him to support Yusef; not because of anything more. Yet that evening she comes up to him when all four of them are settled close together around a fire, and she puts her head under his arm. 

Nicky pulls away like he’s touching burning coals. 

Yusef takes his hand and slowly brings it down onto Zaida. Nicky is so overwhelmed, that bizarrely his main thought is comparing to when he touched her first; that her fur is as soft as he remembered. She all but preens under his touch, her front legs coming onto his folded legs as she nuzzles her head into his chest. He feels Yusuf sigh as their joined hands stay on Zaida.

Athusien squeals, taking their behaviour as permission to throw himself at Yusuf, and bodily launches himself into Yusef’s lap. Yusef smiles and pulls back slightly to run one finger from Authusiens head to his tail.

It’s the most electric feeling Nicky had ever felt.

-

The next thing Nicky realises he’s kissing Yusuf.  
\--

By the time they are 900 years old, Zaida is more likely to follow Nicky then she is Joe, side with Nicky in arguments and sleeps nearby him if she has the chance. Once she left Joe for 3 months and followed Nicky on a mission. Nicky loves her unreservedly, and Joe pretends to complain loudly in their presence of how he’s been betrayed. 

Ahusien is exactly the same with Joe. 

“You love her,” Joe says quietly as they lie together during one evening somewhere, naked because it’s too hot and with have enough privacy for it not to matter.

“She is part of you, and you are part of her. How could I not?” Nicky responds easily because it’s true.

The touches haven’t become less electric or impressive than the first time all those years ago.

\--

Which is why everything that happens at Merrick labs is so much worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... I think we can all guess where this is going.... but I'd love to get your comments anyway. Who knows- you might get me to come up with something new.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woop
> 
> Final chapter- and it's longer then all three other chapters combined you lucky people. 
> 
> So I've decided to just do some good old fashioned world building- if you've not read the Dark Materials, just know that there are witches and that there are also polar bears that can talk.
> 
> Also, love conquers all etc etc 
> 
> As always, Kudos and comments make my day so feel free to leave them

Joe wakes up with his hands bound and his legs chained on the floor in the back of a large truck, the first thing he sees is Nicky is on the floor, just out of reach and equally restrained. At the back of the truck, both of their dæmons are in cages. A cold and deadly fury takes over him when he realises that someone has put a muzzle on Zaida. There are four guards and their dæmons (all dogs) with them in the back. 

Joe leans over, trying to provide whatever comfort he can to Nicky as he tells him to wake up. The guard pulls him back and Joe cusses him out before he can say anything. The guard glances over at the cages and Zaida goes completely still, but Athusien’s tale twitches, so one of the bastards picks up the cage and looks purposefully at Joe, meaning clear. 

“Put him down” Joe growls, as the guard pulls the barely conscious Athusien out of the tiny cage while wearing gloves. Athusien hangs limp in his hands, and Joe doesn’t know if he’s playing dead or if he really is. Joe’s always hated it when people that aren’t him touch the small little dæmon.

“You don’t stop, I'll shoot your little dæmon in the head,” the nameless guard says, squeezing Athusien slightly. Joe clenches his teeth and decides there and then that this guard will die first. 

The fucking morons think the Pine Martin is his dæmon. 

“He has a male dæmon, of course, he’d be worried about his boyfriend,” one of the guards spits towards Joe, derision clear in his voice “what do you expect”, and the rest of the guards' laugh. Joe doesn’t know why, but it’s the casual insult that finally pushes him over the edge.

“You are a child. An infant. Your mocking is thus infantile,” Joe hisses. “You cling to notions that bear no semblance to reality and it makes you lesser than a fucking cockroach. That man and his dæmon are not just my boyfriend. They are more to me than you can dream. They are the moon when we’re lost in darkness and warmth when we shiver in cold. And their touch still thrills me, even after a millennia. Their heart overflows with the kindness of which this world is not worthy of. I love this man and his dæmon beyond measure and reason. He’s not my boyfriend. They are all and they are more.”

The guards are so caught in his words that they don’t even realise that Nicky is now sitting up in between two of them, and has strategically placed himself within reach of their weapons. “You are an incurable romantic," Nicky says as Joe kisses him. The guards, predictably, go to pull them apart and Nicky and Joe make quick work of them. They’re all dead in moments. 

Joe makes sure he’s the one that kills the guard that touched Athusien.

“You spin a good story as always,” Nicky says, his fingers gingerly feeling around his head where one of the guards had managed to pistol-whip him before Nicky had killed him.

“It’s not a story,” Zaida quips as Joe helps her out of the cage. He runs his fingers over her fur and feels her relax under his touch. She weaves under Joe's feet to be closer to Athusien, bumping her head against his and nips at his ears affectionately. Joe sits heavily down against a bench. Nicky doesn’t move from the floor but rests against Joe's legs. 

Nicky glances up at Joe, “they knew about us and they knew where we were. We need to let them take us to whoever’s planning this. Copley doesn’t have the resources to do this all himself. Andy and Booker will come for us.” Nicky says. Joe wants to argue with the plan, but he knows it’s the right move. 

“I’ll stay with Joe,” Athusien says, padding up towards Joe, who leans down and gathers him up so he perches on his shoulder. 

“They’ll probably try and put you back into cages wherever we’re going,” Nicky says as Zaida comes to lie down next to him. Very few people know that they can be separated from their dæmons, but Joe and Nicky can be separated from each other. They normally switch dæmons when captured, as it gives them a rudimentary communication between the two of them. 

They feel the truck turn a corner and lurch slowly to a halt, and the sounds of boots stomping and shouting can be heard just outside the door.

Nicky gives one last glance up to Joe and Athusien; “look after Joe,” he tells his dæmon as the doors swing open with men pointing guns at them. 

“I don’t suppose it would be possible to get these chains off of us?” Nicky says sarcastically to the armed guards. Zaida hides a snigger and Joe tries very hard not to smile. 

None of the guards move. 

“I guess not,” Joe quips as they’re pulled out of the truck.

-

They don’t put the dæmons in cages until they arrive at a private airfield just outside of London. Joe and Nicky are forced off, and Zaida purposefully stays near Nicky the entire time while Athusien is wrapped around Joe's neck. That doesn’t stop Zaida from trying to bite off two of the guards' fingers when they reach for Athusien, almost feral in her anger. 

In the end, the guards decide to put their dæmons together in a larger cage together. They’re never more than 10 feet from their humans. 

-

They meet Merrick, and Zaida tries not to roll her eyes as he gives his ridiculous villain speech. Merrick's dæmon is a snake that likes to flick its tongue out theatrically. She doesn’t grin when Joe headbutts him, but Athusien does smirk. 

In his anger, Merrick takes a knife from Keane. “Mr Copely provided me footage of your unique talent,” he says, “but I prefer my evidence to be indisputable.” He goes to the cage where the dæmons are kept and pulls Athusien out by the scruff on his neck while the guards keep the gun trained on Zaida until he closes the cage, “I saw that your dæmon didn’t turn to dust when you died. It makes me wonder what would happen to the person if the dæmon died.” 

Joe and Nicky lunge at him, almost blind with a mixture of fury and panic. Athusien twists and bites at Merrick's hand, who gasps and let's go. Athusien falls but not before Merrick manages to bring the knife up, cutting deep from Athusiens side to his back leg.

Athusien darts forward, blood following behind him as Joe crouches down, gathers him up and holds him close to his chest. “Do not fucking touch him,” Joe says voice cold with deadly anger. Already Athusiens leg is beginning to heal under the full gaze of everyone in the room. In the confusion, no one notices that Nicky is fighting the urge to vomit and that one of his legs has almost gone out from under him. Everyone's attention is focused on Joe and Athusien.

“What do you see?” He asks his doctor.

“The Nobel prize,” she answers excitedly. Her dæmon is a hare that sits at her feet, eyes staring at Joe and Athusien, nose twitching.

“Last year we brought a drug to the market that helped settle human to dæmon bonds that had been stretched. It made millions on the market and helped hundreds of thousands of people. You will help us expand on that research.” he says dismissively as the guards inject Nicky and Joe with something. 

As he passes out, Joe hears the Doctor tell the guards, “separate them from their dæmons, I want to see if their bond is like a witches bond.” 

\---

Joe wakes up bound to a very uncomfortable hybrid of chair and table. He looks around and sees Nicky strapped up in something similar. He breaths out a sigh of relief when he realises that Nicky is still with him. 

“They aren’t with us. They moved them somewhere but they’re both safe,” Nicky says in Italian. He only ever speaks in Italian in these types of situations when he’s trying to placate Joe. “I haven’t felt anything from Athusien, but I think at the moment they’re just trying to see how far they can stretch the bond.” 

The next day (and possibly night) are a blur of being poked and prodded with varying levels of pain, but Joe doesn’t mind too much. Nicky continues to emotionally manipulate the doctor and neither of them feels too much pain from their bonds.

\---

They bring in Andy and Booker and Joe's heartbreaks. Étilie is taken to where the other two dæmons are being held. Now that she’s mortal, Andy can’t be separated from Scylas. So they stick him in a cage and put him in the corner.  
\---

Bookers betrayed them and Joe is furious. 

\---

Andy and Booker have only been with them a couple of hours, and Joe is shouting increasingly creative insults at Booker in several different languages. The doctor is in the room, but he’s assuming she doesn’t speak enough languages to understand all the languages he’s insulting Booker in. 

Booker tries to explain himself, he tells Joe that Joe’s never been alone and Joe thinks it’s such a pile of bullshit. The two continue to argue and Nicky is telling him in Farsi to calm down when he suddenly goes rigid, clenching his teeth and desperately trying not to make any noise. The doctor stops what she’s doing and looks at him and at her watch. She’s timing something and she looks at Nicky like he’s a mouse or a lab rat. 

“Nicky… Nicky….” Joe says panicked. The other two go silent and Nicky looks at him, and Joe almost wrenches his shoulder out of his socket to try and get free.

Nicky looks terrified.

“Talk to us Nicky,” Andy orders worriedly and in his cage, Scylas stands up and growls. Booker remains silent, but it’s clear he’s worried. Nicky opens his mouth to speak, but suddenly he’s arching his back of the table and it’s clear he’s in an incredible amount of pain. He collapses back onto his table and his hands clench into fists as he tries to fight whatever is going on inside him.

Joe has no idea what’s going on. “What the fuck are you doing to him?!” He screams at the doctor, she moves to stand near Nicky, completely unmoved by his pain and doesn’t answer Joe's questions, She just looks at the numbers the machines attached to him are giving her.

Joe feels completely helpless and he hates it. 

Nicky’s body goes entirely rigid again, his eyes screwed shut and a low painful groan escapes him. He stays like that for the longest 10 seconds in Joe's life before he collapses against the table and takes heaving breaths, desperately trying to get himself under control.

“Nicky!?!” Joe says. Nicky says nothing but stares at the ceiling. 

“How do you feel?” She asks calmly as if seeing a man writhing in pain does nothing to her. 

“What have you done?” Booker shouts at the doctor, suddenly furious. Andy glances over at him, completely confused. “It’s Étilie, she’s losing her shit,” Booker says in rapid French. Joe suddenly feels terror wash over him before realising it’s not his own emotions. 

It’s Zaida. 

He can’t remember the last time she was this scared. Nicky doesn’t answer the doctor's question but looks broken as he looks at the doctor standing next to his table. 

Joes just about to demand answers when the door bursts in and Nile, beautiful, wonderful, armed to the teeth, Nile comes in. She takes one look around and knocks the doctor out while Kaelton throws the rabbit across the room.

“Behind you,” Andy shouts and Nile shoots the man coming behind her and slams the door shut. She’s undoing Nicky’s bindings but he doesn’t immediately move, his mind still clearly far away. Joe knows it's bad.

“Nicky, what’s going on?” Joe says, helping Nicky sit up. Ziada’s still scared, but it’s a constant throb as opposed to the spike of terror from earlier.

“I… I can’t….” he can’t seem to get the words out, and he shivers as if cold. Andy hands them both their shirts and Booker collects some guns from god knows where. He hands them to Nicky and Joe, and Joe's so distracted he takes them without question. He’ll punch Booker when Nicky is better.

“They’re keeping the other dæmons up one floor,” Nile says clearly ready to storm the building to find them. Nicky stands, he doesn’t sway, but it’s a damn near thing.

“Nicky, are you sure?” Andy says, hand slightly pressing down on her injuries, but otherwise appearing unharmed. He nods. 

“Let’s go,” he tells them, voice trying hard not to shake, and they move as one to go rescue their dæmons and get their revenge. 

-  
Kaelton leads them, his keen nose able to track where the three dæmons are. They follow him and kill everyone who gets in their way. Nile takes point and Booker follows, Andy and Nicky go in the middle and Joe goes last. Nicky doesn’t falter once, but it’s clear that at times he’s unsteady on his feet and Joe catches him glancing to his left every so often. He hasn’t spoken once and in the middle of a firefight, Joe can’t ask him what’s wrong. 

They finally make it to the other side and the doors locked. Booker pulls out a key he swiped from the doctors and they rush in. Joe has no idea what to expect. Étilie and Ziada are in cages stacked in a corner, hysterically trying to get out of their cages. They open them and Ziada doesn’t acknowledge either Joe or Nicky before she runs through another door off to the side.

“They took Athusien,” Étilie chirps, before launching into the air and flying after her. They follow them down a corridor to another locked door. A guard is standing outside it, clearly not expecting company. He goes to shoot at Zaida, but Étilie swoops down and goes for his head, and Scylas rushes and launches himself at the guard. It’s a messy death but Joe doesn’t care. The low running fear in Zaida reaches an almost fever pitch. 

Booker pulls the key card from the dead guard and they all move in as one, guns raised as if they’re expecting an army.

What they see is so much worse. Joe doesn’t shock easily but he knows what he’s looking at.

It’s a completely sterile and white lab and in the middle of the room is a raised mesh cage on three sides, and a gold thin guillotine cut through it. Athusien is unmoving in the cage, looking unharmed but unconscious. 

It’s a guillotine room that’s used for the intercision processes.

What the fuck is it doing in a lab in London?

Booker swears in French and Nile is so shocked she takes a step back. Joe’s only come across one of them before in person, but everyone who's ever studied history has probably seen the photos from the experiments conducted all those years ago. Guillotine rooms are the stuff of nightmares and tales to tell children when they misbehave. 

For a moment, time remains frozen as Joe realises what’s happened. They’ve cut Athusien from Nicky. 

They’ve literally cleaved his soul in two. 

Zaida rushes forward, her forward legs jump up as her claws scrabble against the metal table desperate to get to Athusien. Étilie flies straight down into the cage, beak nudging against still Athusien. 

“Wake up Athusien,” she squawks and she sounds so sad Joe would almost feel like she cared, but she and Booker put them here.

Nicky pushes forward as the others clear the room, Booker keeping an eye for anyone coming the way they’d done. He opens the cage and pulls Athusien out, but the little dæmon remains completely unresponsive.

Zaida is looking up, pressed up against Nicky’s legs. “Why isn’t he waking up?” she asks him. He doesn’t have an answer. None of them does. Even in Andy’s 6000 years of life, this has never happened.

“Enough of this shit, we need to get out of here,” Andy says, taking control of the situation. If Joe hadn’t known her for almost a millennia, he would have almost missed the tremor in her voice. “We’ll find a way to fix this, but we need to move.” She asks.

Joe can almost feel Nicky pulling himself together from across the room. All he wants to do is hold him and Athusien, but they can’t. Not while they’re halfway up a skyscraper, in a torture chamber with limited ammunition and people know that they can’t die.

Nicky tucks Athusien close, takes the spare gun from Andy and they move out as one. 

\--

Nicky is distracted throughout the fight and gets shot in the head by Keane while trying to protect Athusien’s still body from the blast. As if he isn’t dealing with enough things right now. He comes back and Athusien is still unconscious in his hands. Nicky doesn’t say anything, but Joe knows he’d hoped it would be enough to bring him back. 

Joe revels in breaking Keane's neck in the penthouse.

\--

Nile throws Merrick out of the window and they miraculously escape to the ground floor. She throws a set of car keys at Joe. “Copely came in a second car,” she tells him. It’s almost impossible to fit 6 grown people and 6 dæmons in a car. “Echo safehouse,” Andy says as she moves towards the other car.

It goes unsaid that Nicky and Joe will go together. Joe doesn’t trust himself around Booker who can’t even look at them in the face. 

Nicky follows silently behind Joe and gets in the front with him. Athusien hasn’t woken up once. Joe wants to ask Nicky if he’s ok, or if he needs anything, but he already knows the answers. No, he's not ok, and all he wants is Athusien. Nicky can barely take his eyes off Athusien as if he thinks his dæmon will disappear into golden dust if he looks away for even a moment. 

Joe is intimately familiar with the pain of the break of the dæmon soul bond. They all are. It happens every time they die, and it hurts like a raw nerve every time. Joe can only compare it to having a limb ripped off and then a freezing cold in your soul that nothing can warm. At least not until you or your dæmon comes back. 

Joe wants to scream at the world for making Nicky feel that for even a second. The idea of an eternity of it seems like madness.

Zaida jumps into Nicky’s lap as soon as they start driving, she buries herself against Nicky and Athusien, as if she and Joe can protect them from the rest of the world. The worst part is that Nicky barely acknowledges her, he doesn’t run his fingers down her back as he always does. In nine hundred years Nicky has always Zaida when she’s near. They’re halfway out of the city when Nicky finally leans back and closes his eyes. “I can’t feel him, Joe. I just feel…. Empty. Cold.” 

“We’ll fix this Nicolo, I swear to….” ...He doesn’t know what he swears to, he normally swears on Nicky and Athusien. Joe remembers when they came across a guillotine room in the second world war. Joe had rushed to help the woman in the room who had been almost catatonic before she had seen Zaida and tried to grab her while calling out her own dæmon. Nicky had found others who had already been separated from their dæmons in another room. Neither they nor the soldiers they were with, had understood what they’d come across. It was only in the weeks that followed as the reports had come to light they’d understood the true horrors of it.

Joe is grateful that Athusien is still with them, but unless they find a solution he knows with a deep certainty that it’s going to get worse. 

He can’t lose Nicky and Athusien, he doesn’t care what he needs to do but he will not lose them. 

\--

They arrive at the safe house and Nicky is still holding a comatose Athusien as they get out of the car. The others have already arrived and are in the kitchen with Nile attending to Andy, and Booker hovering awkwardly around them. Booker stiffens as they enter and he glances down at the still unconscious Athusien. Nicky says nothing, hands Athusien over to Joe who's just behind him, goes straight up to Booker before punching him square across the face.

It sends Booker crashing to the floor, and there’s a stunned silence from everyone in the room.

Nicky stands over Booker's sprawled form and yanks him up by his collar, Joe can’t remember the last time he saw Nicky this angry. 

“Leave,” Nicky hisses. “We will see you in seven days at Prospect of Whitby and we will tell you your punishment. Until then I do not trust you to be here.” Nicky’s voice is colder than ice, and Bookers clearly spooked by it. Unlike Joe, he’s never been on the receiving end of it.

“Nicky I swear… we didn’t know.” Étilie says from her perch on the back of the chair she’s but Zaida growls at her, “don’t come fucking near us, traitor’.

Nicky says nothing, but Joe can see the tension in his shoulders, and he finds himself almost holding Athusien closer, desperate to provide any type of reassurance to them. For the first time in nine hundred years, it does nothing. Nicky isn’t connected to Athusien.

“Nicky, let him go,” Andy says with an authority that no one who’s almost bleeding out in the kitchen should have. “Rest, we’ll speak to Copely and work out what’s happened. I swear, we’ll fix this.”

Nicky doesn’t immediately relax but he does drop Booker unceremoniously onto the floor.

“Do not be here when I come back,” he growls down at Booker, before taking Athusien from Joe and walking straight past and into one of the bedrooms out the back.

No-one else says anything, but Joe can tell that Zaida is torn between desperately wanting to savage Booker and to go and comfort Nicky and Athusien. She looks at him and he jerks his head behind him to the room Nicky just went into. She nods, gives one last growl towards Étilie and scampers off to go and offer whatever support she can.

Joe knows it won’t be enough.

Booker pulls himself up into a seated position and Étilie flies to sit on his outstretched hand.

“Joe, we had no idea, I’m so sor..” he tries to say.

“If you complete that sentence, I will shoot you in the head,” Joe growls. He goes to open his mouth to tell Booker exactly what he thinks of the traitorous pathetic shit when he feels something tug deep inside of him.

Zaida needs him. Nicky needs him. 

“Just get the fuck out,” he says tiredly, suddenly feeling every bullet and cut he’s taken in the last 72 hours.

“Go look after him, we’ll speak to Copley and find out what happened,” Nile says as Booker gets himself up and both Étilie and he head towards the front door. 

Joe watches him leave and tells Andy that they’ll need to move to a new safe house tomorrow, he doesn’t trust Booker to know where they’re staying. He expects her to call him out on his paranoia but she says nothing, and he knows that they’re fucked.

He goes to find Nicky in the bedroom, he’s sitting on the bed cradling Athusien. Nicky doesn’t even notice Joe come in. Joe sits behind Nicky and pulls him down onto the bed. They’re still covered in blood and their clothes are ruined, but Joe doesn’t give a shit- they’ve slept in worse. Nicky doesn’t say anything but he doesn’t have too.

“The worst wounds take longer to heal…” Nicky says out loud as if trying to convince himself and Joe pulls him closer, his hands covering Nicky’s, “...but It doesn’t feel like a wound. It doesn’t hurt, it’s…. just gone.” 

“Sleep, we’ll watch over you,” Zaida says and Nicky closes his eyes. Joe doesn’t sleep, but he does doze, mentally and physically drained from everything that’s happened. 

\--

The next week ranks as one of Joe's worst weeks in his 900 years of life. They move safe houses (closer to London) and throw themselves into trying to find a solution. Andy and Nile meet Copely who shows them the boards which catalogues their achievements and offers to help in any way he can. Joe won’t leave Nicky, and Nicky…Nicky gets worse.

Either he’s; asleep, cold, barely responsive or aware of what’s going on, and as the week goes on a growing mixture of all three. Nicky wakes when roused, does whatever task is asked, barely speaks and then inevitably goes back to sleep. Joe and Zaida have taken to hovering, unsure for the first time of what to do. They know it would drive Nicky mad if he was more aware of what’s going on but he isn’t, and the entire time Athusien stays unconscious. 

The Merrick incident gets lots of coverage but as soon as the guillotine room is reported media attention turns out outrage, with condemnation on all sides. It means the focus is off them which is good, but it doesn’t help the more important task of fixing Nicky. 

Throughout it all, Joe and Andy argue over what to do with Booker, Nile thinks they should forgive him but she’s too new to count. They’d asked Nicky, but he’d just looked at them and shrugged, telling them he didn’t care as he tried to keep himself awake. Andy thinks he should be banished for 50 years, Joe wants to bury him alive and leave him there for what happened to Nicky. 

They settle on 200 years of banishment.

One week as Nicky promised, Andy and Nile head to the Prospect while Joe stays with Nicky and goes over Copely’s notes. Booker never shows.

Andy doesn’t seem surprised, and Joe doesn’t care- fixing Nicky is the priority. A couple of days later, Andy tells Joe to come with her, Booker wants to meet them. Joe finds himself torn, but concern for Nicky will always win out over his own stubbornness. They agree to meet at the Prospect again, but Joe insists Nile stay with Nicky for protection. Zaida stays by default. 

They meet Booker on the shore of the Thames below the pub. He looks like shit, with dark bags under his eyes and the slight tremor in his hands that means he hasn’t slept much. Étilie flies in loose circles above him, clearly agitated. If Joe cared, he'd be worried, but right now all his worries and concerns are focused on the love of his many lives who for all intents and purposes is slowly dying. 

“If this is another ploy, I will find a way to kill you,” Joe says as a way of introduction.

Booker sighs and looks out over the water, “how is he?” Joe doesn’t think that Booker has any right to ask that question, especially as he’s the one that caused it. 

“Stop,” Andy says just as Joe opens his mouth to argue, “this is not the time for it.” Turning to Booker, “did you find them?”

Booker sighs, “Yeh, and they think they can help”. Joe looks at Andy, very confused. She smiles and Joe thinks it might be the first time she’s done that since Merrick.

“I told Booker to find the witch clan we helped last century.” She tells Joe. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up and I knew you wouldn’t leave Nicky. I couldn’t go myself as I wouldn’t have survived the North and they trust Booker more because of Étilie.” 

Their relationships with the Witch clans is complicated, transactional and wary at best- distrustful at worst. Many of the clan leaders know Andy, all of them having walked the world for millennia, but that doesn’t mean they get along. Their little family might have dæmons that they can separate with, and Booker might have a bird dæmon, but they’ve always been wary of Joe and Nicky for reasons none of the clans has ever explained. Most clans these days live near the cold and the ice up North, isolated from the rest of the world. 

Joe remembers the last time they’d met a clan. It had been at the beginning of the 1900s a clan when they’d been asked to help some children escape from the Church and bring them to the North. It had been a miserable cold journey overland to Norway, avoiding airships before they’d taken a boat even further north to the endless night. The witches had been grateful. 

Mostly Joe remembers Nicky getting drunk with a polar bear warrior. 

“One of their healers will fly to Northern Scotland where you can meet her. They think they have a way to fix the bond. I suggest just going with the two of you, they don’t need to know about Nile.” He hands them over a map and some keys. “I’ve got you a property close to the coast and as far away from everyone as I can.”

Joe takes it, dumbstruck. Nick’s going to get better.

“Did they give you any more information?” Andy asks, and Booker shakes his head. 

Nick’s going to get better.

Étilie lands on his shoulder and looks at Joe, “I know you don’t believe us, and we know Nicky won’t forgive us, but we are sorry,” she says, Joe knows she means every word.

Nick’s going to get better.

“Hundred years,” Joe chokes out as he clenches the map, “we’ll meet you back here in a hundred years.” Booker nods in understanding. Andy didn’t say anything to Joe halving the sentence unilaterally. 

“Nile would have taken just an apology,” Andy jokes. 

Booker smiles, “give her time.” He pauses and looks at Andy, “I won’t see you again,” and he pulls her close. 

“Have a little faith,” Scylas replies and they leave the Frenchman on the beach.

Joe glances over his shoulder as he walks up the stairs. He doesn’t forgive his brother, but it’s a start. 

\--

Nile stays with Copely, and the two of them drive up to Scotland through the night taking turns driving to get there quicker. Nicky is barely conscious and Joe holds Athusien close. They arrive at the house and find the witch waiting outside, arms bare and completely unaffected by the cold.

“Andromache of Scythia?” she asks as they get out of the car, her goose dæmon stands up and flaps its wings beside her. Andy nods and the witch helps them get Nicky inside. “Lay him on the bed and then leave, you are not of a clan so you cannot witness this.”

“No,” Joe argues. There’s no way he’s leaving Nicky by himself.

The witch barely acknowledges him and turns to Andy. “None of you are of a clan.”

“He’s family, so no.” Andy answers. 

The Witch says nothing for a moment, clearly thinking, “the fox dæmon can stay. She has a bond with your sleeping companion, I can fix the old one based on hers.” 

“What do you mean, Zaida has a bond?” Joe asks bewildered. The Witch tilts her head to the side and assesses Joe. It reminds him of a bird of prey.

“Your dæmon is his and his dæmon yours, it is why the guillotine didn’t immediately kill them both. Their souls are tethered to yours. Surely you must know that the two of you are bonded?” Joe shakes his head, no- he did not know that. “You are both covered in Dust…” she looks at him as if he’s a child. 

Joe has no idea what that means or how to process this information.

“Go,” Zaida says, nudging at Joe's legs, “I’ll keep them safe.” 

Andy starts pulling Joe behind her. “I’ll kill you if you hurt them,” she says casually to the witch, and it’s clear she means it. 

\--

Joe paces continually around the living room with his ears straining to hear any sound from the other room, but only hears silence. Even his bond with Zaida is quiet. After an hour the woman walks out of the room, her goose waddles behind her. 

“It’s done,” she says, tone neutral.

“Did it work?” Joe asks. As he says it a shadow darts around her and jumps at Joe.

It’s Athusien.

Joe catches him and pulls him close, he runs his fingers from the top of the pine martins head to his tail, just as he did the first time all those years ago, and Athusien nuzzles his face against Joe. As he does Joe feels a similar but incredibly faint tug as he does when Nicky touches Zaida. It’s electrifying. 

“We’re okay Joe,” a tired voice says from behind the witch. Nicky is leaning heavily against the doorframe, with one hand on Zaida who's looking at him with naked adoration. Joe walks straight past the witch and pulls Nicky close, foreheads resting together with their dæmons between them. Nicky mutters reassurance in languages just the two of them speak. 

Joe grins with wet eyes, happiness overflowing because he can _feel_ their bond. All four of them. 

-

Andy leads the Witch outside and closes the door behind the two men. They’re clearly in their own world but she doesn’t want to take any chances that they might overhear her.

“Tell Yambe-Akka I consider the debt fulfilled,” she tells the Witch.

“You cannot ask for another boon.” Andy nods, she knows what the Witch means. “You will both age and die, and we will not save you.”

“We’ve been around six thousand years if it's our time then so be it,” Scylas shrugs. 

“Why did you not use the boon for yourselves?”

“Saving them was more important. One won’t survive without the other.”

The Witch says nothing, and Scylas bows farewell to the goose. 

“When you die, call for Yambe-Akka and we will come, we will at least give you a clean death.” The Witch leaves with her final words said. Andy watches her go, remembering a similar conversation with a Witch from thousands of years ago. She scratches the top of Scylas’s head. 

“Come on, let's go break up the two lovebirds,” she tells her dæmon and they go back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you like it- then leave a comment or a kudos. They always make my day!

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously- I'm obsessed with this movie, it's so bad.
> 
> So I have a couple of snippet ideas, it's probably not going to follow the same outline as the movie, but just the parts where I think having a dæmon would make it more interesting. I'm more then happy to take suggestions so please feel free to leave something in the comment section below, and I might just run with it.
> 
> So far the chapters I've roughly sketched in my head-  
> 1) Niles introduction to the group and the dinner scenes  
> 2) Joe/Nicky at Merrick laboratories.  
> 3) Nicky and Joe backstory  
> 


End file.
